Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
This enmity toward ravens probably has at least two causes. The first has to do with feeding habits.
Ravens aren't crop eaters, and hence are much more oriented toward meat than crows. They're note-
worthy carrion eaters, and Heinrich postulates an extremely close relationship between ravens and large
predators, such as wolves, polar bears, and cougars. It appears that ravens follow these predators when
they're hunting, thus gaining a share of the kill. Unable to kill large prey, or even to penetrate its hide,
the ravens depend on the big predators to open up their kill and provide access to the innards.
Ravens are also known to peck at the eyes of dying animals, including domestic ones, because, in
the absence of large predators, that's all they can get at. Farmers and ranchers, observing this behavi-
or around dying livestock, or ravens around the carcasses of recently deceased animals, have accused
them of killing lambs, calves, and even adult animals. Although the ravens lack the capacity, in most
instances, to kill large animals, they've often been blamed for deaths that are really attributable to other
causes. Nonetheless, this belief has led to the persecution of ravens and payments to farmers for reputed
raven damage.
In addition to eating carrion, ravens are omnivorous feeders. Garbage, large insects, frogs, birds'
eggs, nestlings, mice, a variety of invertebrates, and other small creatures are prominent in their diet.
Fruit, berries, and seeds are also included in season. With their powerful beaks, ravens are also substan-
tially more predatory than crows on midsized prey, including animals at least up to the size of squirrels
and cottontail rabbits.
A second reason why ravens have been viewed in such a dismal light is a bit more complex and dif-
ficult to explain. To put it in its simplest terms, however, it's because the raven, as a carrion eater, has
been closely identified with death. Although it's impossible to prove, this may have something to do
with the raven as a scavenger of human bodies on countless battlefields down through the ages.
Certainly the raven hasn't always been viewed in such a negative way. Inuit and Native American
legends honor the raven, and the Bible gives it excellent press. Genesis, for example, says that Noah
sent forth the raven from the Ark, and the bird went to and fro until the waters were dried up. Likewise,
in I Kings, ravens brought the prophet Elijah “bread and flesh” to sustain him.
Somewhere along the line, however, this favorable view of the raven broke down rather badly. Edgar
Allan Poe's portrait of the raven as the herald of doom and despair is undoubtedly the best-known liter-
ary example of the raven's unsavory reputation, at least in the English-speaking world. It's by no means
the only one, however. In the early 1700s, John Gay penned the lines, “That raven on yon left-hand oak
(Curse on his ill-betiding croak!) Bodes me no good.” And Sarah Helen Power Whitman wrote of the
raven in this fashion: “Raven from the dim dominions / On the Night's Plutonian shore, / Oft I hear thy
dusky pinions / Wave and flutter round my door. . . .”
Fortunately, a more enlightened view of the raven now seems to prevail, at least in most quarters.
With protection, both raven numbers and the range of the bird have increased, and it seems likely that
this trend will continue.
Added to the raven's other interesting feeding habits is their caching behavior. Ravens commonly eat
part of their food and cache, or hide, some of it in various locations. The usual behavior on bare ground
